We are thrilled to announce the arrival of the latest addition to our family – Nestor! He made his grand appearance on October 26, at 2:15am weighing in at 3910gr.

My waters broke on Sunday morning at 2:30am, one day shy of 38 weeks. Needless to say, this took us by surprise as we haven’t expected much to happen for another couple of weeks. I had read all these stories about storms of contractions starting immediately after waters breaking so I started getting anxious. But not much happened within the course of the next few hours, we phoned the midwife in the morning, she came around 1pm and told us that I have 24 hours to start labouring in order to deliver with them, if not I will be turned over to the hospital staff. I started listening religiously to my Hypnobirthing CDs hoping to jump start the labour but other than a few sporadic mild contractions here and there not much was happening. We figured that perhaps we should send Una to Sanja and Ivan’s just in case that her presence subconciously delayed labour. Yes, I was that desperate to go into labour on my own and avoid induction. So off went my first baby so that I could wait for the arrival of my second baby. After more than one tear shed around this very emotional moment (by me of course, she waved quick goodbye as she was really looking forward to going to her best big friends) I tried pulling myself together and again focussing on all the techniques we had learned to relax and bring on the labour. Mark and I spent the evening watching Mama Mia and just relaxing but nothing happened and Monday morning my midwife practice phoned and told me that they had made an appointment at the hospital for me to have the baby checked out and discuss the next steps.

Once in the hospital we were strapped onto CTG, had an echo done and a couple of other check-ups and since everything looked good I was given until Tuesday morning at 7am to start labouring on my own at which point they would induce me. I was very grateful they didn’t induce me right away and had a good feeling that something would happen by then. Monday afternoon Una came home for dinner and cuddles and then she was back to Sanja and Ivan’s. I asked Mark to play yatzee to pass the time, which we did, until about 10pm when we went to bed. Still no contractions. At 11pm I woke up feeling rather strong contractions and tried timing them but they were coming really close to each other. I was listening to my relaxation CD and tried staying relaxed and focussed. By 11:30-11:45 I had started shaking and woke Mark who saw that things were getting serious, quickly jumped in the shower, packed the last couple of things and off to the hospital we went. We checked in around 12:30, by 12:45 I was strapped onto the monitors and at 12:55 the midwife checked me and asked if I had the urge to push. I was very confused by this question but it turned out that I was already fully dilated and ready to push! Mark and I were really shocked as we were expecting another 30 hour marathon. At that point the contractions were really strong but the hypnobirthing visualisation and breathing techniques still worked. The midwife told me to use these powerful contractions and nudge the body into pushing the baby out. The first couple of times I tried it didn’t work so we decided to wait for pushing contractions. They were not coming so I tried again, my body took over quickly and 5min later our baby was out. It took us a few minutes before we realised that we didn’t know the sex of the baby and I asked Mark to look, which he did and said “It looks like it’s a little boy”. The midwife and nurse left us alone for quite some time and we really enjoyed this special time. I felt great and Mark commented that I hadn’t even broken a sweat during the whole labour. I showered on my own, got changed and transferred to the maternity ward around 5am where Nestor and I spent the rest of the night. Mark had to go home but joined us early in the morning.

We knew that we would have to spend 24hours in the hospital due to my waters being broke for so long which made us more susceptible to infections. It turned out that Nestor’s body temperature was really low, starting with 34.5C early in the morning and luckily steadily raising througout the day but it was still closely monitored througout the day. Mark spent the morning with us, fetched Una from daycare in the afternoon and brought her to meet her little brother for the first time. Una was really impressed by him, kept saying that was her little brother, really cute. One of her teachers told Mark that while the kids were decorating a slinger for Nestor, Una got everyone attention and told them “Listen everyone, only the pretty colours for my little brother, OK?” My sweet little girl.

Mark and Una left around 7pm and Nestor and I spent the night in the hospital, luckily that day was really quiet and we were alone in the room the whole night. In the morning, both Nestor and I got a clean bill of health and were told we could go home! Mark fetched us around 10am and at home we were welcomed by Sanja, Ivan, Johan and Taryn, the decorated house and some amazing food that Sanja made.

Since then, we have been enjoying the first days as a family of four, being totally spoilt by our maternity nurse who comes every day for 8 hours, helps around the baby, makes lunch for us, does the washing, plays with Una while we take naps – all in all really makes sure that we are enjoying what the Dutch call our kraamtijd. Nestor is a really content baby so far, eats, sleeps, pees (often on us :)), poops and takes in his new surroundings. Una is mostly gentle with him although she tries squezing in a firm hug or two every now and then. I feel great and the recovery has been a breeze.

We still can’t believe how lucky we were with our labour experience and how fortunate we are to be blessed with two beautiful, healthy children. Una is our first baby and she made us a mother and a father. Nestor makes our family complete.

3 responses to “Introducing Nestor!”

They are both really gorgeous! It is a juggle having two so little and how one would suffer from less attention, and I was also worried about how I would cope on that front, and apart from some days were they are both really needy, it somehow works out! One thing I do try to do every night is put the baby down a little earlier that the older one so we can have 20-30 minutes to draw or paint- something only we can do together, She looks forward to that big girl activity and it means a lot to her. (sorry if you get a duplicate of this post- i sent one earlier but don’t know what happened to it!)